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The Duck of Minerva

duckofminerva.com

The Duck Quacks at Twilight

Society / politics / economy

’05’10’15’20’25
Posts
6,133 from 17 May 2005 to 2 Nov 2026
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weekly (55 in the last year)
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magazine
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Latest

November 2026

  1. The Curse of Elon

October 2026

  1. Israel’s Dead End
  2. Proxy Patrimonialism and the Path to Pre-modernity
  3. Huntington wasn’t wrong. He just wasn’t right
  4. Episode 2: Being and Insecurity
  5. The Tao of the One: Trust, Rapprochement, and the Turning Wheel
  6. Don’t Hold Your Breath on AI-Driven Wargaming

September 2026

  1. When Constitutional Functions Blur
  2. What If Iran Acquired the Nuclear Bomb? A Case for Uncomfortable Diplomacy Over Catastrophe
  3. Middle East Studies: Still beating that strawman?
  4. The hypothetical science

August 2026

  1. The Pedagogical Legacies of the Pandemic
  2. On religious dialogue and “stochastic terrorism”
  3. Today’s sanctions aren’t special. They’re just keeping up.
  4. Our Age of Bronze is Collapsing: Nolan’s Odyssey as Allegory for the Decline of American Hegemony

July 2026

  1. Divided Government and Multilateral Assistance
  2. Episode 1: Gates of the West
  3. Unmanageable ally? Ceasefire breakdown reveals deeper tensions in US-Israel relationship
  4. Before you say it: the World Cup probably won’t increase US soft power
  5. The Uncanny Effects of the UK Court of Appeal’s ruling on the Proscription of Palestine Action

June 2026

  1. What Politics and IR can teach AI pedagogy
  2. How Russian economic policy is gender
  3. How the Iran War harms U.S. deterrence
  4. 6+1 Questions about Resilient Statehood
  5. On Indigenous Political Thought in Video Games
  6. Rest Well, Raul Pacheco-Vega
  7. Dugin, the Ultimate Tradwife

May 2026

  1. I choose to celebrate Eurovision
  2. Whither Scottish progressivism?
  3. Britain is experiencing wave of antisemitic terrorism: Whether organic or state-sponsored, it needs to be addressed

April 2026

  1. This Protestant feels confused: On moral authority and the Pope-Trump divide
  2. What’s at Stake in the Indigenous Empire Debate
  3. The Gulf is a vital lynchpin of global stability, and it goes far beyond energy
  4. The Scripts We Perform: Militarized Masculinity and the Gendered Order
  5. Religious nationalism makes the profane sacred: True faith uses the sacred to heal the world
  6. Watching Scientific Progress in Action

March 2026

  1. Was I wrong on the Gulf states and Iran? An exercise in academic humility
  2. The Best and Worst of U.S. Foreign Policy(?)
  3. 6+1 Questions about Exit from International Organizations
  4. Iran and the shadow of the Kosovo intervention

February 2026

  1. Rubio’s civilizational appeals will backfire

January 2026

  1. “Fair Trade” and the revenge against the “Foreigner”: From Chamberlain to Trump
  2. What’s with all the racism?
  3. An Accidental Academic: 20 Years Later
  4. How To Review Efficiently and Fairly
  5. Renee Goode and the limits of false terrorism charges
  6. Trump, US foreign policy and Venezuela: Aberration or Honesty?
  7. Is Peer Review Broken? Should Reviewers Be Paid?

December 2025

  1. Do you want a religious war? Because this is how you get a religious war
  2. Remembering Our Lost Colleagues
  3. Farewell

November 2025

  1. Can the news ever be impartial?
  2. Here We Go Again: Why American Presidents Can’t Resist Regime Change
  3. Bullies, Follies, and Decadent Orders: Constructing Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern
  4. Exploring the Meaning of Responsibility
  5. Nuclear apocalypse now? Reflections on the movie “A House of Dynamite”

October 2025

  1. 6+1 Questions About “The Social Construction of Christian Persecution through Quantification in International Religious Freedom Advocacy”
  2. Ceasefire NOW (but not *now*)
  3. Antisemitism, Israel and the Problem with no Easy Solution
  4. The Mirage of Great-Power Competition
  5. The State of the Union is Grim

September 2025

  1. 6+1 Questions about American Conquest: The Northwest Indian War and the Making of US Foreign Policy
  2. Will the recognition of Palestine matter? What IR scholarship says
  3. Trump’s Foreign Policy and the Purpose of the MAGA State
  4. How do we think about 9/11 in 2025?
  5. Benjamin de Carvalho

August 2025

  1. Who wants AI in the classroom?
  2. 6+1 Questions about “The U.S.: A (Mostly) Hands-Off Superpower”

July 2025

  1. Is there a strategy behind Rubio’s State Department cuts?

June 2025

  1. After Anarchy? On Hierarchy, Heterarchy, and Multiplicity
  2. Why have so many Muslim communities embraced radicalism?
  3. What’s the Matter with Soft Power?

May 2025

  1. Trump’s Tariffs and the Profits (and Deficits) of Personality
  2. Resisting a narrative on Israel and antisemitism
  3. Joseph Nye’s other big idea
  4. Probiotic disinformation
  5. 6+1 Questions about Waging War with Gold: National Security and the Finance Domain Across the Ages
  6. The Vatican’s Quiet Intelligence Legacy and Why It Matters Now

April 2025

  1. The frustrating wisdom of Pope Francis’ international mediation
  2. Unreal climate ‘realism’

March 2025

  1. Big Man, Big Heart
  2. The Folly of Trying to Trade Russia for “Europe”
  3. So much for “Great Power Competition”

January 2025

  1. 6+1 Questions about “Race, Shaming, and International Human Rights”
  2. Decoding “America First:” Which international institutions Trump 2.0 will criticize, undermine, or leave
  3. Grabbing the world by the norms
  4. O Canada/Ô Canada: A defense of Canada in international affairs
  5. Jimmy Carter’s legacy: a challenge to recognize and act on religion’s significance

December 2024

  1. My Best Classroom Reads of the Year
  2. Another terrorful Christmas, this time for complex reasons
  3. The Classroom and the Magic Circle
  4. Jason Ralph
  5. Does this mean Assad would have fallen ten years ago?
  6. Climate Pledges as Vehicles for Political Posturing
  7. “Peacecraft” and the Nuclear Policy Dilemma

October 2024

  1. Who is behind the terrorist attack in Ankara?
  2. The return of civil political discourse

September 2024

  1. 6+1 Questions about “The Fossil-Fueled Roots of Climate Inaction in Authoritarian Regimes”
  2. Migration as the Outcome of States’ War against Nations

August 2024

  1. What to Do About Clausewitz: Saving Strategic Studies From Itself
  2. Jamie Frueh
  3. And All That Jezebel

July 2024

  1. Was the Trump shooting terrorism?
  2. Bloody Carnival
  3. The Munich Agreement, but Negotiated by Oswald Mosley
  4. The Frontier Politics of Horizon

June 2024

  1. 6 + 1 Questions about “Compliance in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights”

May 2024

  1. Eurovision suggests both sides on Israel-Palestine need to invest in some public diplomacy
  2. The Contradictions of “Progressive Realism,” and How to Overcome Them
  3. Israel protesters may be missing their best opportunity to help Gaza

April 2024

  1. 6+1 Questions about “The Diplomacy of Whataboutism”
  2. Susan Sell: The Power of Mentorship and Example
  3. Sebastian Kaempf
  4. On reckoning and repair in the international: revisiting imperialism and race in IR
  5. On the politics of decolonization theory and practice
  6. A reckoning with the traditional diplomatic community
  7. Landmarks and warning signs
  8. International Relations and the Problem of Literacy
  9. Is Latin America “International” enough for IR?
  10. On the Global Entanglements of Race, Empire, and Knowledge
  11. Now what?
  12. Introduction to the Symposium on “Race and Imperialism in International Relations”

March 2024

  1. Proxies, Pawns, and Spoilers: How Pro-Iranian Elements in Iraq use Christians and What that many Mean for Democracy
  2. Lene Hansen
  3. On Israel-Palestine, don’t ignore grassroots efforts at peace
  4. Staff Rides as Pedagogical Practice in International Relations
  5. Driving while looking in the rearview mirror
  6. Leaders’ preambles and world ordering in national security strategy documents: the (un)surprising global strategic ambitions of the US and UK

February 2024

  1. 6+1 Questions about Between Mao and Gandhi: The Social Roots of Civil Resistance
  2. Huss Banai
  3. To the Grand Peace Strategist
  4. Erica Resende

January 2024

  1. Susan Sell: Speaking Truth to Power
  2. Liberty’s in every blow!
  3. Susan Sell: A World Class Scholar and Human Being
  4. Remembering Susan Sell
  5. Live. What are you waiting for? A reflection on Susan Sell’s influence.
  6. Identity Politics and the Orthodoxies of the National Security Policy Community
  7. I can’t believe I need to explain why the Houthis aren’t heroes
  8. The Competition Metaphor in International Relations

December 2023

  1. Germany: Climate Disappointment of the Year
  2. The misuse of the Christmas story, and why it matters for international relations
  3. WHY MADURO IS BLUFFING (AND ESEQUIBO IS NOT THE MALVINAS)
  4. When is it ok to express concern about persecuted Christians?
  5. The Blue Pacific’s Organically Progressive Strategic Culture
  6. I guess the UN Secretary General is suddenly concerned about human rights

November 2023

  1. Ordering Power: Hegemonic Architecture in a Multipolar World?
  2. Are forced migration crises moral or institutional?
  3. The Blue Pacific Has a Sphere-of-Influence Problem
  4. Book Nook – All Options on the Table: Leaders, Preventive War, and Nuclear Proliferation

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